The prior art provides a very interesting history of the arts' unsuccessful attempt to utilize Velcro®-type materials in combination with a tennis racquet to serve as a ball retriever. The purpose of such a retriever, when attached to the tennis racquet, would permit the tennis player to merely extend the tennis racquet to retrieve the tennis ball from the court. Early patents such as French Patent No, 2,594,037 by Gene Muslin theorized that a cloth wrapper with hooks including catching elements made of smooth layers of fastening retention threads attached to a tennis racquet would allow the tennis player to retrieve the ball without bending down or stooping. The French patentee disclosed numerous positions for attaching the cloth with hooks to the tennis racquet. The French patentee fails, however, to provide any enabling guidance as to what type of cloth with hooks could be utilized for this purpose. The patent literature collectively reveals that the positioning and configuration of the retrieving element upon the racquet by the French patentee would not lend itself to effective grasping and retrieval of a grounded tennis ball.
Another early patent to Peter Ross (U.S. Pat. No. 3,874,666) proposes the use of what is referred to as mid-temp Velcro®. Apparently, as indicated in the patent, the Ross retriever includes an outer surface equipped with stainless hooks which, when emplaced upon a tennis racquet, will hook onto the nap of a tennis ball. A subsequent patent, U.S. Pat. No, 4,834,393, to Joseph A. Feldi in discussing the shortcoming of the Ross retriever indicated that the stainless steel hooks as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 3,874,666 to Ross, had two major drawbacks. First, it was extremely difficult to pick up a tennis ball with the Ross system with success only in one out of five tries. The second problem was indicated that “after just a few retrievals using the standard tennis ball the ball covering becomes fuzz and no longer useful in normal play.” In order to overcome this inability to effectively retrieve a tennis ball with a hooked material attached to the tennis racquet, Feldi proposed to completely alter the outer covering of the tennis ball to a nap consisting entirely of a different looped material more compatible with the hooks which, in turn, then would allow a hooked material of conventional Velcro®-type hooked fabric affixed to the end of tennis racquet to effectively pick up a tennis ball. Thus, Feldi's suggestion was change the tennis ball nap so that it could be retrieved with the conventional hooked fabric materials.
Another early patent to Steven M Schubert entitled “Racket Mounted Tennis Ball Retriever” of U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,327 makes reference to a tennis ball retriever sold under the trademark “GRAB-R” which consisted of an adhesive strip containing countless tiny hooks for adherence to the rounded frame at the head of the racquet. Schubert indicated that in order to permit the GRAB-R to retrieve the tennis ball, the tennis player must first secure the ball under the foot to keep if from scooting away and then engage the racquet retriever onto the ball and twist the racquet so as to snag the hooks into the covering pile.
Recognizing the inability for hooked fabric materials, such as Velcro® hooks, to effectively retrieve a tennis ball when attached to a flat or convex surface, the Schubert patentee, as well as many others, proposed to attach a cup-shaped retriever onto the butt end of the tennis racquet. The cup provided an internal cavity of a concave configuration conforming substantially to the configuration of the arcuate periphery of a tennis ball. By compressing the grounded tennis ball against the cup, an improved interlocking engagement of the hooked and curling looped fabrics was achieved by simply decompressing the tennis ball (i.e. lifting) which action apparently allowed the hooks and tennis pile to interlockingly intermesh onto one another. This design significantly increases the contacting surface of the hooks allowing the weak hooking efficacy of many hooks to provide sufficient attachment to lift the ball from the ground. Schubert indicates that if the fabric section is placed on the convex surface or even on a planer surface, which would be applied tangentially against the ball, the retriever would be ineffective for snagging the hooks into the piled loops of the ball and lifting the ball. Because of the increased surface exposure by cupping the ball, the ineffective hooks are numberly increased so as to enable the hooks to snaggingly engage the curly pile of the ball so it may then be lifted from the ground. The proposal by Schubert is not the most desirable way for attaching a ball-retrieving device to a tennis racquet. The handle of the tennis racquet is normally held by the tennis player. Consequently, when it is desired to retrieve a ball, the tennis player must grasp the head of the tennis racquet and then force the handle butt end and attached the tennis ball retriever against the courted tennis ball.
A somewhat similar ball-retrieving apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,712 to Kenneth J. Urwin. Similar to the Schubert patent, the Urwin patentee relies upon a cup-shaped gripping section of an arcuate shape conforming to the spherical shape of a tennis ball, which enables the enlarged portion of the gripping hooks to more effectively contact, attach and securely grip the tennis ball.
Another early version of a ball retriever of a cup shape for attachment to the butt end of the tennis racquet handle may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,881 to David A. Norton. The Norton patent relies upon a concave recess equipped with clip means preferably formed from a resilient material, which includes a plurality of radially extending arms. The arms are turned so as to extend in a substantially parallel relationship to the sidewalls of the receiving cup for the tennis ball. The free ends of the arms include a plurality of hook means disposed in a nap-engaging relationship to the corresponding portions of the tennis ball. The hook means are generally disclosed as teeth. The patentee alternatively mentions, but does not show, that a strip of Velcro® tape could also be used.
In summary, the prior art generally teaches that Velcro®-type hooked materials (i.e. fabric hooks) of a polymeric material construction, such as a nylon, necessitate substantial interfacial contact with the tennis ball cover in order to effectively be utilized as a ball retriever. Consequently, the prior art has taught the utilization of cup-shaped attachments to the tennis racquet which generally conform to the configuration of the tennis ball so as to provide an increased concave surface area for more effectively hooking and retaining the tennis ball. Since these cup-shaped retrieving devices are relatively bulky, they cannot be affixed to the tennis racquet head but must rather necessarily placed upon the butt end of the tennis racquet handle. The prior art consistently teaches that such hooked fabric materials are ineffective when utilized simply as a flat strip attached to the surface of the racquet rim or as an attachment upon the convex surface of the tennis racquet head. The prior art solution to the ineffectiveness of Velcro®-type fasteners is to increase the interfacing surface by designing the retriever to extensively cup the ball so that the ineffective hooks are then present in sufficient numbers to allow the ineffective hooks to lift the tennis ball.
In each of these situations, the prior art teaches that the tangential contact and use of such a retainer fails to provide a sufficient number of hooks so as to effectively grasp and retain the tennis ball. The applicant desired to utilize a hooked fabric attachment which could be removably attached to the flat or convex surfaces of the tennis racquet and allow for retrieval of the tennis ball simply by tangential contact of the tennis ball therewith. Unexpectedly, the applicant has discovered that a very narrow range of hooked fabric materials which, when attached to the tennis racquet, possess unexpectedly superior ball-retrieving efficacy notwithstanding making only tangential contact between the hooked material and the tennis ball nap. The discovery permits a lightweight, adhesively and removable ball retrieving element to be placed upon the tennis racquet head without adversely affecting the player's use of the racquet. The retriever is light in weight and does not alter the balance of the tennis racquet. When it is desired to retrieve a courted ball, the tennis player merely extends the retrieving head so as to tangentially contact the surface of the tennis ball with the retriever and tangentially hook onto the nap of the ball with the retrieving hooks and lift the tennis ball therewith The retrieving device exhibits extraordinary hooking and lifting efficacy. Simply tangential contact results in a surprisingly superior engagement efficacy upon initial contact with the tennis ball. The retrieving device has been effective upon all of the major brands of tennis balls.